My stance against banning fighting

There is a lot of talk about eliminating fighting from the game of hockey. In fact this call is at an all time high right now. Unless you live in a vacuum, you will know that there are a fair number of  hockey pundits (most of which have never played the game of hockey) that are racing to jump on the eliminate fighting from all levels of hockey, band wagon. It's getting crowded fast. 

I for one am not a big fan of this idea. I think it's highly flawed, short sighted and flat out wrong.

Here is why. I believe that there are a lot of “Rats” in hockey, you know the ones, these are the gutless pukes that have no regard for their opponents, players like Matt Cooke, Max LaPierre, Jordin Tootoo, Jarkko Ruutu, Alexandre Burrows and they will run wild, if left unchecked, especially if they don’t have to face the music or look over their shoulder.

These types of players will flourish and morph, if they know they don't have to face the music and don’t have something to keep them honest.

I am dead serious, you will also see more of these “Rats” surface "if" hockey is transitioned to non-fight sport. 

If fighting is eliminated from hockey, this will be the direct cause of a lot of gratuitous. unneeded and brutal violence. Eliminating fighting will cause injuries will spike as well.

This is because a player won’t be able to settle differences on the ice like men and you will see also see a lot more of the dangerous checking from behind and boarding incidents, many of which will lead to serious injury.

One could make the argument that this is the reason you see some many of the dangerous hits in the NCAA, which is a non-fight league. I guarantee that you would see a lot less of the extra after the whistle garbage from the agitators in the NCAA, if these players had to answer for their antics on the ice, once in a while.

How many times have we seen a game where there is a fight and after the fight the games settles down and the teams play hockey again.

As we have seen this past season, we can not count on the NHL to protect the players and most of the concussions that players have suffered this season are as a result of dangerous dirty and or high hits.

I broke it down recently in this blog post with my favorite team, the Boston Bruins, which currently has 3-4 players currently out with symptoms that would suggest that they have post concussion syndrome. None of these guys were injured in fights but injured with high hits. So what next eliminate checking from hockey?

I don’t agree with Bob Boughner on a lot of things. But I do think he is right in this situation.

We’re on a very, very dangerous slope,” Boughner said. “We’re preparing guys for the next level and if you toughen the rules and get rid of it (fighting) in the game, it would have to coincide with the NHL and AHL. “If they’re not doing it, then you’re putting kids (looking to go pro) in a tough situation.” Taking fighting out of amateur hockey might also take away an enforcer’s ability to battle for an NHL roster spot [The Windsor Star].

I also think before we run off and drastically make unneeded changes to the game of hockey maybe they need to talk to the hockey people first.

“When you eliminate the opportunity for players to quote-unquote defend themselves, there’s significantly more stickwork, significantly more bullying or verbal abuse, where a player knows if he does something he can get that other player out of the game,” said Kelly McClintock, who as general manager of the Saskatchewan Hockey Association is in charge of amateur hockey in the province. [New York Times]